up to 56 cores (112 threads)up to 3TB RAMup to 3 graphics cards... and pretty much everything else you can dream of.

Now that's a proper machine!

It also seems to have a pretty small form factor if you consider what's in there!

I had an xw9300, it was... alright.

The speaker was much better than the mac pro (not that it matters) and the drive sleds were very clever (again, not that it matters).

I’d never do an HP again after a couple other pavilion and probook laptops. OTOH, this one might almost be powerful enough to run the required several dozen requisite HP spyware, adware, freeware, and scamware programs that it comes with. They come out of the box with the system tray stretching the whole length of the display.

I think there is a typo in the title of this thread. 'Apple', 'Workstation' and 'Dominance' are used the same sentence. o.0

When did Apple dominate the workstation market? I must have missed that . Last time apple had dominance over x86, MIPS was in charge with the software that mattered .

apple's GL was always behind, and GL is what CAD uses. ergo, it was never able to beat PC at it. Apple had its own GL stack (usually behind standard) so didn't exactly go with the pack and *nix drivers for the likes of nV have only been decent in the past 8/9 years or so? They have always been good at 'media' content creation/publishing and suites like Avid/FinalCut have helped the cause, but for other workstation tasks, their subsequent price for what is effectively the same hardware, but looks *nicer* and has OSX, only goes so far in practical, get work done, terms.

3DS Max (which appears to be flavour of the month for the last quite few months in 3D content/creation) doesn't even run natively on OSX. Likewise Revit which dominates AEC, or Inventor. They are just 3 examples, but 3 quite hard hitters. Hardware is only as good as the software that runs on it. And decent software can make relatively crap hardware absolutely sing (Amiga!).

I thought the reason they went to intel was because the PPC couldn't keep up in either performance and power efficiency. They admitted they couldn't deliver performance of the G5 they had promised, because perhaps PPC couldn't do what was required of it? not at least without challenging an Onyx3000 in a power drinking contest

GIJoe wrote:the sucky cut down version of that into the Playstation 3 but since i was working in the field at the time i do recall that developers really hated it and that for years it was a nightmare to port to

Yes CELL on PS3 is a pita. PPU not so much, but any utilisation of the SPU (which gives it its parallel grunt, and adds to the pretty impressive bandwidth 'vital statistics') which is execute from PPU code, means that it can suffer Amdahl badly. Not all ports benefit all that greatly from concurrent execution (or could require larger re-writes to get even mildly decent performance), and PPU (albeit @ 3.2ghz) on its own maybe isn't that great, since this required for the business logic. Graphically speaking the RSX didn't hold the PS3 back imo.

guardian452 wrote:Too bad I just got an iphone 7 a few months ago. Ah well.

Probably a good thing.

I ‘erd that iPhoneX maps your facial expressions to an emoji? So now you have to put on your best poker face just to read messages?

Oh well, gone are the days of hiding behind the faceless email/pm. I'll have to get me one of dem V for Vendetta masks. Unless there is an emoji for that of course ...

Irinikus wrote:The only gripe that I have is with Apple themselves as a company and not with the machine, as they seemingly abandoned a great design, in not offering an upgrade for the GPU side of the machine during its relevant lifespan! And for keeping dead quiet about their future plans for the Pro line.

They announced a new mac pro over a year in advance in April, which is something they've never done before. And they announced the imac pro very early as well.

I think there is a typo in the title of this thread. 'Apple', 'Workstation' and 'Dominance' are used the same sentence. o.0

When did Apple dominate the workstation market? I must have missed that . Last time apple had dominance over x86, MIPS was in charge with the software that mattered .

Apple was and probably still is in charge of the A/V and photo market, it's also pretty rare to see a software/web dev with something non-apple nowadays. They have never been anything more than a curiosity at best for the CAD/CAE/CAM market.

guardian452 wrote:They announced a new mac pro over a year in advance in April, which is something they've never done before. And they announced the imac pro very early as well.

That might be so, but the Mac Pro 2013 has proprietary graphics hardware and GPU's are the part of the machine that definitely ages the quickest. Considering what we paid for these machines, Apple should have at least given us the opportunity to have the machine upgraded from a GPU point of view during it's lifespan!

It's a great machine, I absolutely love it, but Apple definitely let it's customers down in this respect!

Wasn't that the main complaint for that box before it was even available for sale, was that the GPU couldn't be upgraded? It may be a disappointment for some owners but it should have never been a surprise. It wasn't even an MXM module...

Irinikus wrote:The GPU models in this machine are easily replaceable, as they simply connect to the "bottom plane" of the machine

that's a pretty sad state of affairs then that they never came around with an update. as i recall even at release in 2013 the generation of AMD chips they chose was not the then newest one anymore and i think the trashcan mac (along with the rest of the line up) was excluded from VR support by oculus et al for lack of GPU horsepower when that hype was in full swing.

did they at least ever offer a program for owners to upgrade the graphics after purchase to one of the existing higher end models? together with a latte from the genius bar. or was it starbucks?

No upgrade parts were offered because it wasn't standard - the best you could hope for is to upgrade your D300 to a D700 from another mac pro. There are power limitations as well - the juice wasn't there, and neither was the radiator capacity.

guardian452 wrote:No upgrade parts were offered because it wasn't standard - the best you could hope for is to upgrade your D300 to a D700 from another mac pro.

yeah i know it isn't just an AMD board of the time in a custom form factor but did they never sell their cards separately either if they are as easily replaceable as Irinikus states?

anyway, i wonder how they sold that machine internally as a successor to their cheesegrater then. "no it's not upgradable but me made a shiny case for it. roadmap...? road-what? it has apple maps pre-installed. next?"

guardian452 wrote:No upgrade parts were offered because it wasn't standard - the best you could hope for is to upgrade your D300 to a D700 from another mac pro. There are power limitations as well - the juice wasn't there, and neither was the radiator capacity.

The apple upgrade path from this machine is to buy a new imac.

Apple could easily have increased the thermal efficiency of the machine, while retaining it's small form factor by simply making the inner core of the machine out of solid copper rather than aluminium (aluminum). If you consider the cost of the machine, the extra cost for the copper would have been insignificant.

I will have to look into this, but I cannot imagine that the iMac would have better thermal efficiency than the Mac Pro. The iMac is simply a MacBook built into a Cinema Display, and my 27 inch Cinema Display gets rather hot on it's own! In my opinion, the iMac is more of a compromise than the Mac Pro!

The Mac Pro 2013 is an engineering marvel no matter whether you like it or not, but the thought process behind delivering good product support through relevant upgrades during it's life was non existent!

They say that the next Mac pro will be modular, so we'l just have to wait and see!